Notations
Reporting, Research and Staff
The Schools story for this section was written by Times Education Writer Elaine Woo based on reporting from Times staff writers Richard Lee Colvin at Manual Arts High School in Los Angeles; Mark Gladstone at Oakmont High School in Roseville, Placer County; Duke Helfand at Granada Hills High School in Granada Hills; Tina Nguyen at Katella High School in Anaheim; Tony Perry at Hoover High School in San Diego; Doug Smith at Taft Union High School in Taft, Kern County; and Woo at Arcadia High School, Arcadia. Additional reporting was provided by staff writers Nick Anderson, Ken Ellingwood and Amy Pyle.
*
For this series, the Times Poll surveyed 2,804 California adults, including 1,281 parents that have schoolchildren, by telephone November 18 through December 12, 1997. Also interviewed were 545 children between 12 and 17 years old. Random digit dialing techniques were used so that listed and unlisted numbers were contacted. Asian parents were interviewed in their language by Interviewing Services of America. And interviews were conducted in English and Spanish. The margin of sampling error for adults and parents is plus or minus 3 percentage points, for children it is 5 points. Also a random sample of 1,091 teachers, surveyed Nov. 13-16, 1997, was drawn proportionally from the California Teachers Assn and the California Federations of teachers’ membership lists. The margin of sampling error for teachers is plus or minus 3 percentage points. Poll results can also be affected by other factors, such as question wording and question order.
*
Statistical analysis of California public school education data was conducted by Richard O’Reilly, the Times director of computer analysis, and Sandra Poindexter, data analyst. Researcher Nona Yates assisted in the compilation and presentation of the data.
*
Additional research was conducted by a team of analysts from UCLA’s Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing, including Denise Quigley, Richard Brown, Jamal Abedi, and co-director Eva Baker.
Projects editor: Kevin Roderick
Section editors: Paul Lieberman and David Lauter
Graphics editor: Les Dunseith
Graphics: Lorena Iniguez and Roger Kuo
News editor: George Foulsham
Copy editors: Robert Browning, Mike Castelvecchi, Tami Dennis, Larry Harnisch, Steve Hensch, Mark Sachs, Elizabeth Troy and Mike Wyma.
Photo editor: Calvin Hom
Photographers: Mark Boster, Bob Carey, Carolyn Cole, Robert Durell, Robert Gauthier, Irfan Khan, Luis Sinco and Clarence Williams.
The series, at a glance:
TODAY: A Week in The Life: An inside view of seven California public high schools
MONDAY: Culture and Language: The implications for schools when so many students don’t speak English--and so many don’t care about learning
TUESDAY: Teacher Shortages, Accountability and ‘Grand Gestures’: How a succession of school “reform” efforts have been heavy on good intentions and light on follow-up.
* This series, along with additional statistical information on every public high school in the state is available on the Internet at https://www.latimes.com
